Just incase anyone finds this. PRAGMA journal_mode=DELETE doesn't turn off the journal. It just says that when the transaction is finished the journal file should be deleted rather than being truncated or overwritten. If you really want to turn off the journal, which you shouldn't, then you can use PRAGMA journal_mode=OFF.^**

See https://sqlite.org/pragma.html#pragma_journal_mode for more information.

** Or at least in theory. Right now PRAGMA journal_mode=OFF is not working for me, but that's another story.